Two legs bad, two wheels good

The first time I went abroad independently was with a couple of University pals to Paris in about 1972. We went on the train. We drank filter coffee from bowls, just like Jean-Hugues Anglade, we struggled with the language, climbed thousands of steps and walked and walked and walked. I was very soon hobbling. I'm prone to blisters and foot damage in general. When I wandered around Spain in the 1980s and 1990s using public transport I would always pack all those patent foot plasters, bandages and balms designed to keep one's feet in tip top condition.

We were planning to walk the Camino de Santiago. We still are. Maggie has booked flights and a room and a couple of friends are bound for Galicia at the end of May beginning of June. To be classed as having done the pilgrimage you only have to walk the last 100 kms and that's what Maggie intends to do but I have more time. I fancy the Pamplona end of the French route much more than the Galicia end so I'll do one end and then join Maggie at the other. A chum from around here has signed up to come along, actually it's probably the other way around, I'm probably joining him as he walks regularly and does yoga and badminton and stuff that makes me tired just thinking about it as I flip the pages of my book.

So we were planning and walking became cycling. Like me, Bobby, for that's his name, has problems with his feet. To qualify as a pilgrim, we need to go 200 kms on a bike. That didn't sound like much. First things first though. If I were going to ride to Santiago I'd need a bike. The one I had in the garage came from a supermarket, weighs the fabled ton and cost me 40€. Not really suitable. It was easy to get a replacement. Lots of people think a bike is a good idea until they have to go uphill. There were lots for sale and I bought one - it's one of those half mountain half tourer jobs. I put on some panniers and saddle bags and a cuentakilometros, an odometer. I couldn't hold it off for ever though and I had, eventually, to ride it rather than just tinker with it. I bought padded underwear.

I have pals who don't like to cycle unless the route includes near perpendicular climbs. I see the Facebook pictures of other chums who ride vast distances to go to distant tearooms and take photos of wild flowers. I smoked for forty years. I am reminded of this when, on the slightest incline, I sound like, well I sound like an old bloke with wrecked lungs gasping for air in order to keep his vital organs from failing. I also notice that my legs don't work quite properly when I get off the bike (and what's with this modern form of dismounting where you have to step forward because the saddle is so high?). I also worry that the light headedness which comes over me as I stop and pant may have me blacking out again and earning another ride in an ambulance. I somehow suspect that steep gradients and immense distances are some way in the future or, more likely, in Peter Pan's homeland.

Nonetheless I'm trying. Only 12 kms the first day but today, fourth time out I did just short of 30 kilometres which sounds reasonable enough until you turn it into a bit short of 19 miles and then you add in that the difference between the lowest and highest point on the route was only 80 metres. Worse still I only averaged about 17 km/h. Approximately the same speed as a pig can go when it gets a move on.

Walking to Santiago

I have friends who love to walk. They stride out across moors, along coastal paths and through forests carting tasteless cereal bars and bottles of water in their high tech backpacks. They comment on the fauna and flora and marvel at the views. I have no problem with the basic idea of walking as a method of shrugging off a mild hangover or as penance for a good lunch but serious walking has never appealed.  Now don't get me wrong. I don't have any problem with people enjoying walking for walking's sake and I definitely approve of walking as a form of transport. For instance, if I were in the British Museum and still lusting for enlightenment the walk down to the Natural History Museum, with the promise of all those landmarks along the way, would get my vote over the Tube. As a young man I worked in Leeds and often caught the last train to Huddersfield. With a following wind that train might get me in early enough to catch the last bus home to Elland but, as often as not, it didn't and, usually, I quite enjoyed that four mile walk home

I'm sure that you've heard of the Camino de Santiago, The Way of St. James. It's said that the bones of the Apostle, St James, lie in Santiago in Galicia. The pilgrimage to get there is, I think, number three on the priority list of Christian pilgrimage sites after Jerusalem and Rome. Nowadays walking to Santiago is a big tourist draw. People do it for all sorts of reasons. Religion is one of them, for others it's a broader idea of fellowship, for some it's the physical challenge whilst some people do it in the same way as they'd walk the Light Wake Walk or stride out on any weekend. I have several friends who have done it - generally by foot though at least one by bike. Most have found it hard, painful work.

People often wrongly think of the Camino de Santiago as a route, something like doing the Pennine Way from Edale to Crowden. That's to miss the essence of the Camino. The whole point is the pilgrimage, the destination, the tomb of Saint James. When Christianity was a driving force behind European society getting to Santiago was worth mega points in your bid to get into Heaven; into Paradise. Getting the Compostella, the certificate that proves you did the pilgrimage to Santiago, was the real life equivalent of the get out of jail free card. Nowadays there is a non religious version but I understand that most people still opt for the much prettier religious version. I'm also told that, for obvious promotional reasons, the Church tries to persuade walkers to take the religious document.

That's not to say that there are not recognised routes to Galicia. In the Middle Ages, to get to Spain from the British Isles, your average Irish or English pilgrim would take ship to A Coruña or Ferrol and walk in to Santiago from the coast. On the other hand the common or garden French pilgrim would probably walk in at Roncesvalles via St Jean Pied de Port and do the French Way. There are plenty of other routes too. If you've ever done the Lonely Planet type trip around Guatemala or Turkey you know that you keep bumping into the same people. It was the same for the early pilgrims. Walking in from Southern France the Arles Way or the Catalan Way made sense whilst the Swiss would walk the Le Puy Way and the Portuguese, very properly, the Portuguese Way. I was in Pinoso town hall years ago when a bloke turned up with his credencial, the passport that you get stamped as you walk. He was asking about getting some sort of official stamp to show that he'd done his distance. Pinoso isn't generally on the major routes!

After a few drinks we've often talked about doing the Camino. Some friends took this more seriously than most and bought a guidebook and did a bit of planning. We are now pretty sure that we're going to do it in the Spring and there may be more friends going to join us. Now for someone who has just said that he doesn't care to walk this may sound like madness. But I'm working on a theory, a theory that, like Ernie's, is one what I have and is not backed by anything specific. Santiago has been attracting pilgrims for hundred of years. As those pilgrims trudged the new routes other people, entrepreneurs, saw the opportunity to make money by opening hostels, brothels, taverns, cobblers and bakers, along the way, aimed specifically at the pilgrims. In turn, that influx of people, and wealth, along the route made lots of other services, like flour mills, vets and blacksmiths, into viable business ideas. Over time those original routes have lost importance. Like drovers paths and canals the traditional route has now become become something of a backwater. The motorways and train lines still go to the same major cities but by slightly different routes. This, I hope, has left the old route laden with history so that it's going to be nearly as interesting as that walk through Bloomsbury, Mayfair and Knightsbridge.